| The Warrior King Contributor(s): Komborozos, Costas (Author) |
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ISBN: 1721145052 ISBN-13: 9781721145058 Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform OUR PRICE: $13.29 Product Type: Paperback Published: June 2018 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Action & Adventure - Fiction | Literary |
| Physical Information: 0.3" H x 6" W x 9" (0.43 lbs) 138 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: On his death bed, the Persian king Xerxes recalls the matchless bravery of the Spartan king Leonidas. An unknown scribe listens to Xerxes' story. "As Xerxes lays dying before me, history spreads and unfolds intangibly before my eyes. I am standing beside him, feeling his story pouring out a stream of words. Then he sees something. Then I realize that he is seeing someone, someone from his past. Xerxes widens his eyes. "What is it? What do you see?" "Leonidas, he is here." I look behind me but only see an empty space. Xerxes maintains his eyes rigidly on the ghost. Then Xerxes' gaze returns to me, his eyes still transfixed by the sight of the fallen Leonidas holding a blade bloodied by the deaths of hundreds of Immortals. "My words...let them speak. They must speak." He knows me. He recognizes me. And here he tells me to let his words echo across the shadows of history. Will I do so? Xerxes looks upon with keen expectation. Dread fills him now more than. The fear of having his words silenced forever is greater than the fear of death. If my words vanish, who will tell my story? How will my words speak? That is what his eyes are saying. But I hear the tide coming now. History's tide. Xerxes' tired eyes peered into the void. I stood and waited for him to continue. The words streamed out his mouth unequivocally. His life seemed to leave him like teardrops, which then fell like small oceans unseen. Oceans gone before they are born. Time flees him now more than ever. "Why are you still here, scribe? Ah, yes, let the words speak. I shall not speak them. They shall speak. The years are words. Words forming from battlegrounds forged, from bone-thick truths that break upon war's lie." In his confusion, he views me as someone who will write down what he believes is his glorious words, words he knows will never exist in his mind. He believes that the words will simply come into being and fill the void of the glory-deprived kingdom he left. "Write the words," he says. His hand gestures aimlessly, tracing some invisible alphabet. Then his words seem to form intangibly before me." Xerxes rests in his bed chamber, feeling the black of night beginning to weigh heavily on his eyelids. His eyes become shut but then blink open to gaze upon the reflected light of torches in the distance. The king lets his eyelids become sealed by the blackness, and his mind begins its drift toward unconsciousness. Then he hears a sound. A gentle footfall that pierces the deep silence. Xerxes opens his eyes and waits to hear the sound again. He hears it and then rises. The sound becomes sharper. There are a series of footfalls, which triggers waves of alarm in him. The king sees his chamber light up suddenly. He sees the ghost of a man he watched fight on the front lines to sacrifice himself. Leonidas. Xerxes remains voiceless, thinking for a moment that this is another portentous dream. The Spartan king strides toward him calmly, speaking only with his eyes. Xerxes struggles to maintain a calm demeanor, feeling that the night has passed in mere seconds and that he is being ushered forth in the instantly-dwindling remainder of his days. Leonidas shines bright white, his blade bloodied by the deaths of hundreds of Immortals. "Have you come to kill me, Spartan king?" Leonidas remains silent. Xerxes feels his own defiant gaze wavering upon the sight of the Spartan king remaining before him. The cold silence in the Spartan king's eyes makes Xerxes feel paralyzed. He feels a blade enter his heart, and the last thing he sees is Leonidas fading away into a blackness returning to usher the Persian forth into not sleep, but death. |